From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Customer complaints regarding the use of ethyl lead fuel in Bentley cars and proposed solutions.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 150\1\ scan0269 | |
| Date | 12th January 1937 | |
| 1282. S/W {Sales / Derby Works} (Rm. {William Robotham - Chief Engineer} ) from H. {Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} H3/H12.1.37. RE: USE OF ETHYL LEAD FUEL IN BENTLEY CARS. Thank you for your Rm {William Robotham - Chief Engineer} 1/R9.1.37. We fear you have not fully realised what we are up against. The customers having trouble whom we are trying to tackle are not Sports car enthusiasts ready to jump out, open the bonnet and tool locker and set about a job of work such as changing or cleaning plugs. Bentley owners are in many cases owner drivers and women, some incapable, all disinclined for work and every single one expecting a trouble-free motor car, turned out by the Rolls-Royce people for from £1500 to £1700. They are using their cars for a heavy proportion of town work and bad town work at that and it follows that their lead deposit forms in a matter of days, not months, and in a few hundred miles, not thousands. On a separate sheet please see particulars of a few cases. Their attitude then is that it should not happen and whether true or not, they claim it does not happen on thousands of cheap cars and, of course, at present they rub in American cars of similar performance at one-third of the price. If the solution is a mixture of ethyl and straight petrols to get over pinking they would find it infinitely less trouble for a garage-hand to supply them from two pumps than do anything themselves even at the bench at home - which half of them haven't got and most of them couldn't use. Turning now to your suggestions. If you are certain Discol will give trouble with pumps we must give up the idea of it. It is useless to give a man a switch which, when his car won't go properly, merely confirms the fact that one pump has packed up. His view will be that he has got to send the car to us and we can find out what is wrong for ourselves. | ||